Very Funny

The production is participating in the ShakespeareOFF competition.

The aim of ShakespeareOFF is to invite extra-institutional artists and groups whose starting-point in projects is the work of Shakespeare.to cooperate. ShakespeareOFF is a competition in which new independent productions are partly financed and are prepared especially for the festival. They will be judged by an international jury.

The production is the proposition from one of the five finalists.

The artists about the performance

Fat and Dumb, i.e. Patrycja Kowańska and Dominika Knapik, creative artists working in theatres as directors, choreographers and dramaturges, place themselves on the stage. They explore the dynamic of the duo through the prism of their own bodies while to the emplois of contemporary freelance artists they try on the condition of a clown. Drawing on Shakespeare’s imaginarium, they juxtapose their own clearly different silhouettes with the protagonists of the plays. Fatty-Kowańska has the conditions to portray the ribald Falstaff. Nitwit-Knapik recalls agile clowns, well-exercised in movements and words. The authors look suspiciously at Shakespeare and “the tradition of the artist-genius”. They base both on his brilliant texts and on their own jokes or perverse choreography.

Drifting on Bosch’s “Ship of fools”, they play with theatrical conventions by deconstructing stereotypes concerning the political potential of sex, the body and the miserable fate of freelancers. They pose a whole series of uncomfortable questions concerning (artistic) work, and pull smelly things out from under the carpet. They do what they should not do. They say what they should not say. They use clownery “as a Trojan horse in which there is hidden a whole army of inventive concepts…” To this end, they use the archives of past and future creative processes, while measuring up to their own complexes and ambitions. This will be tragic(-comic) in its consequences. Maybe they will even have to bury their own talent and dreams? VERY FUNNY.

Creators

Directing, choreography, dramaturgy – Fat and Dumb (Patrycja Kowańska and Dominika Knapik)
Musical arrangements – Fat and Dumb
Video – Fat and Dumb
Costumes – Fat and Dumb
Lighting, technical direction – Wolfgang Macher
Musical consultation – Dawid Sulej Rudnicki
Photography, make-up – Magdalena Kasjaniuk

Cast

Patrycja Kowańska
Dominika Knapik

Language – Polish with English surtitles

Partner – Schauspielhaus Bochum